


Exemption 45

by EfremPangui



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Gen, Magic is Might Statue, Ministry of Magic, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Nymphadora Tonks Lives, Post-Deathly Hallows, Prime Ministers' Club, Remus Lupin Lives, Wizarding Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 06:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14665062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EfremPangui/pseuds/EfremPangui
Summary: In the aftermath of the Second Wizarding War, it becomes clear that the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy has been blown to pieces. Beleaguered part-time intelligence analyst Henry Clark attempts to explain to the ministry the severity of the situation, and how, during the climatic Battle of Hogwarts, the queen mother came to be in the Ministry of Magic with shotguns, a handbag full of plastic explosives, and two Canadian Prime Ministers.





	Exemption 45

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: I have taken certain liberties with the chronology to make this story work. The largest is that I have pretended that Tony Blair never existed, and given his period in office to a “Jim Hacker,” (though possibly not that Jim Hacker). After the Iraq war, it is very hard to say anything funny about Blair. Many people probably feel the same way about some of the other political figures named, which is fair enough: feel free to find/replace all with random names, and it shouldn’t matter much. Within Harry Potter canon, the only explicit departure is that Tonks is inexplicably still alive (and let us say Lupin as well, for the sake of a light tone).

_Report: Reassessment of Secrecy Implications of ISWS Exemption 45_

_Prepared by Magical Law Enforcement Analyst Dr. Henry Clark, Historical College of Aberdeen (Intelligence Bio File Number A 6969, vol. 1-3), for Dept. Magical Law Enforcement, by order of N. Tonks, Interim director._

_Domestic Distribution -- Eyes-only: K. Shacklebolt, Interim Minister of Magic, N. Tonks, Interim Director Magical Law Enforcement, A. Weasley, Asst. Director Muggle Artifacts, Johnny “Chemist’s Son” Anderson, Director Accidents and Catastrophes, ?(1)Director Dept of Secrets, R. Hunter, Director International Magical Cooperation, Wizengamot standing committee on secrecy, L. Stein, undersecretary of postal security, R. McStudgeon, Asst. Director, MI3.(2) _

_Foreign Distribution: None – Redacted version for distribution to key allies (and the Americans) in preparation.(3)_  
_Introduction_

_The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of 1689 includes forty-seven exceptions. The first ten involve variations on necessary defense of life, the sixteenth permitted communication within the first degree of spiritual, ecclesiastical, or matrimonial kinship, the eighteenth permits revelations within the confessional.(4) Most of the others (ie Thirty-Eight – Exemption in the event of meteor strike endangering Basingstoke) have never been invoked, or, like Exemption Forty-Three, which provides special exemption for Miss Molly Worthington of West Bromwich (for whom at least one convention member evidently had a thing), have been invoked only once. One exemption is still routinely invoked by magical governments: Exemption Forty-Five – necessary communication to muggle heads of state or heads of government. _

  
_Initially controversial, the necessary communication exemption has repeatedly proven useful, especially in the last century. The resources of muggle law enforcement and armed forces have been called in at moments of crisis, sometimes to great effect. The danger to the overall policy of secrecy of Exemption 45 was judged, in the last relevant ministry report (in 1969) to be minimal, provided communications be confined to head of state or head of government level. A letter to the Fudge government drafted by Prof. C. Burbage (then a  part-time analyst for the Obliviator office), calling for a reassessment of this policy, was ignored, and Ministry position continued to be that the muggle social stigma against the acceptance of magical occurrences would prevent any more general security breach._

  
_The events of 2 May 1998 have called this assessment into question, in light of the following facts:_

  1. _Heads of state/government tend to be powerful, well-connected individuals_
  2. _The number of current and former heads of state/government in the world in a given moment is non-trivial._
  3. _Heads of state/government can talk to each other. Like, on the phone.(5) Really easily._



* * *

  
  
_London: 3 May, 1998._

  
_The actions of T. Riddle’s adherents near the end of his life are not yet well understood. As near as can be determined, a small cadre of his followers (including A. Dolohov, C. Yaxley, and possibly L. Malfoy) were increasingly responsible for strategic planning, as both Riddle himself and B. Lestrange, his chief lieutenant, became more and more erratic. When Riddle became entirely un-steerable, this party sometimes resorted to unapproved parallel action. Riddle’s assault on Hogwarts Castle, which was thought likely to result in open warfare and armed intervention by the Swiss, Maltese, and Bolivian magical governments, already teetering on the edge of declaring war, drove the cadre to attempt to secure their position – existing schemes to suborn the UK muggle government, the Ministry of Magic of the Irish Republic, and (for some reason) the Welsh Assembly were accelerated. The assault on the Irish Irish Ministry was aborted, and those resource re-deployed to the Hogwarts theatre. The effort to suborn the Welsh assembly was apparently successful, and a super-majority of the Welsh legislature is currently believed to be mind-controlled by dark wizards. C’est la vie. The Obliviator office is drafting a plan to remedy this issue, and has offered assurances that the process should be completed some time before 2010.  The assault on the Muggle government collided catastrophically with a muggle organization called, for the purposes of this report “The Prime Ministers’ Club.”_

* * *

  
Jim Hacker, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, sat at his desk at 10 Downing Street. He had, upon moving in, redecorated the office somewhat. While the desk of his predecessor, John Major, had had a view of the window, Hacker’s sat facing a gilt-framed and rather hideous picture above the fireplace. He was staring vacantly at it, while he talked animatedly on the telephone.

  
“Yes, I know what Maggie wants, John, but it’s perfectly impossible. I’m very grateful for her help, but you know as well as I do that if we involved her any further, she’d have me targeting London town-houses with ballistic missiles. Come again? No, not him either.  Are you serious? Even if he could move without the press jumping all over him, we are planning on shooting them, not having sex with them. Besides, Jean sounded him, and he’s not even entirely sure the Americans are keeping theirs in the loop.”

  
A high tone cut across Hacker’s voice, followed by a high, calm woman’s voice. “To the Prime Minister of the Muggles: the Minister of Magic will be arriving momentarily.”

  
Hacker’s eyes bugged out, and he sat up straighter and stared at the portrait. “John? … John! Its happening now. Well how should I know why now? Who have we got in town? Wait, what? No, no, no!”

  
Hacker was bellowing into the receiver now, as a portal billowed out to cover the whole picture frame, and a gangly man in a pinstripe suit crawled through it. “Prime minister,” he began, in a high voice, “I am…”

  
Hacker cut him off rudely with a wild motion of his left hand and continued to shout. “No they will not do. Trudeau, fine, but Jean is a serving prime minister! And the idea of using… No, I don’t care what she wants!”

  
“I am the new Minister of Magic,” the tall man said. “Pious Thickness. I am cognizant of the fact that you and your subordinates have had remarkably little supervision from my predecessors, however, I am here to remedy…”

  
“Hell. Well how about Thatcher then, if no one else is in town… Well why is she in Yorkshire? … Look I am not going to explain to Her Majesty…”

  
“To remedy,” Thickness said, a little more loudly -- this was evidently a rehearsed speech, and he was irritated at the continual interruption – “this unfortunate circumstance. I assure you, it will be entirely painless.”

  
“Oh shut up!” Hacker snarled at the tall man in fury, hurling the telephone receiver at his head. It rebounded on the long cord before it struck, but Thickness flinched away, and reached for his jacket pocket. Hacker tore open the top drawer of his desk, and jerked out a Webley machine pistol. He flicked down the safety, and emptied the magazine in the man’s general direction. Thickness slumped to the ground, oozing blood over the expensive carpet.

  
Hacker tried to inhale, but choked on the smell of cordite, and dust from the shredded plaster of the wall behind Thickness. Setting the machine pistol down on the desk, he inserted his right forefinger into his right ear, and twisted it around. He grabbed the phone cord, pulled the handpiece back, hand over hand, and placed it to his left ear, which was ringing marginally less.

  
“John? Yes, I’m still here. You’re going to have to speak up, I can barely hear. Look, no, I don’t care what Her Majesty said, there is absolutely no way we are having the queen mother participate in an armed assault on the headquarters of a hostile government.”

* * *

  
_The origins and extent of the ISWS-45 data breach have not yet been fully traced. There is circumstantial evidence of high-level discussions of magical society by muggle authorities at the 1945 Yalta Conference. At present, our working hypothesis is that, although Churchill was unable to alert his successors to the existence of the magical world without drawing unwanted attention to his relationship with champagne, the British royal family, who were repeatedly (and unwisely) provided information under ISWS-45 during the Wars of Grindelwald, served as a point of continuity, as well as a vital node of high level communication among various heads of state. In essence, George VI and Elizabeth II after him acted as case officers, using their royal cover to recruit current and former prime ministers within the British Commonwealth, and various high-ranking figures from friendly nations, as intelligence sources against the MoM and the rest of the magical world. The number of sources increased sharply after Elizabeth’s marriage to Prince Phillip, who served as a useful cutaway – so long as Phillip made the approach, it was generally assumed by those who were in fact ignorant of the magical world that his references to it were merely more casual racism. It is likely that many of these agents were eliminated by Obliviator intervention, but the absence of any policy of interrogating witnesses, rather than simply wiping the memory of everyone within a half-mile radius, makes this impossible to confirm._

  
_Despite the increasing size of the Prime Ministers’ Club, the network remained relatively dormant – they were reliant on ISWS-45 briefings for their information, and these were deliberately limited. Only in 1981, in the aftermath of the First Great Wizarding War, did the network gain access to more sensitive material._

* * *

  
_November, 1982._

  
Malcolm Fraser jumped out of the limousine in the hastily organized motorcade and onto the tarmac, brushing off his suit coat. It irritated him that, as the leader of a major world government, there were nevertheless people who could force him to reorganize his schedule on short notice simply by arriving. He checked his watch – they still had five minutes. He half wished they had been late – it would be good for her to have to wait for something, for once.

  
Fraser chatted with his driver and smoked a cigarette, watching the small security force (thank God she had decided to land on a military strip and not a civilian one, which would have made security on such short notice absolutely impossible) until the RAF jet swooped down, and finally rolled to a stop a few hundred meters past Fraser’s position on the edge of the runway. Fraser was walking towards it when the hatch opened and was secured by RAF officers in dress uniform, who saluted sharply as Elizabeth II strolled down the stairs. She smiled when she saw Fraser, and waved to him. “Mal! Glad you made it.”

  
“Your majesty. On behalf of the government and people of Australia, welcome…”

  
Elizabeth cut him off. “Mal, if the Australian government and people, present company excepted, find out I’m here, it means we’ve screwed up, ah, royally. Wish I could stay and catch up, but this has to be quick. We’re on business.”

  
Fraser grimaced. He had known that, really. It was not as if the queen would make a spur-of-the-moment trip to Australia under other circumstances. But he hated dealing with the astonishing freakiness of Her Majesty’s moonlighting projects. “All this weirdness, with the fireworks and owls and things. Have you found out what’s going on?” he asked.

  
“No,” the queen said. “But we’re going to. How quickly can you arrange a diplomatic bag for me? Climate controlled shipping container, with pumped oxygen – the courier doesn’t need to be one of ours, there are plenty of cover stories that would hold up, but I can’t use the British government with the people they have had on us for the last few years. I also need Australian papers for a dozen people – I’ve got their information here.” She handed Fraser a portfolio – he opened it and saw the names and personal details of a dozen Mongolian nationals: two families, and two single men. “The pictures you have there should be good enough for the passports, but you can always reshoot if you need to.”

  
Fraser considered. “I can probably get it done in a day or so. But what do you mean, we can re-shoot? And what do you need the diplomatic bag to carry?”

  
But the queen was already walking towards a plane that had been there already when Fraser arrived. One of the RAF officers jogged to catch up with her, and Fraser followed more slowly, after looking around for a safe place to stow the portfolio, and tucking it awkwardly under his arm. The hatch of the other plane rattled open, and a group of people filed out – Fraser recognized several from the photographs he had just been examining. The queen greeted the group, beaming, and stooping down to smile at one of the children. She began exchanging small talk with various members of the group, rapid-fire, with the officer acting as an interpreter. Fraser considered welcoming the group to Australia, but since he still had no idea who they were, and they were apparently about to have always been Australian citizens in any case, he didn’t bother.

  
Just as Fraser approached, the queen and two of the Mongolians, a man and a woman, broke off from the group. The interpreter moved to follow, but seeing Fraser, the queen waved him off. “Stay and help the rest of these people, dear, we won’t be a moment.” She beckoned to Fraser, and they moved with the Mongolians toward the plane’s cargo hatch.

  
“We’ve been relying on personal intelligence, Mal, and it hasn’t been enough. But whatever is going on now, they’ve let their guard down, and given us an opening. You are helping me get the core of our new signals intelligence unit onto British soil, where it can do the most good.”

  
The cargo hold opened. Fraser peered in, but jerked back when he saw movement in the darkness. The Mongolian woman turned up the lights, and Fraser saw a series of six large, heavy cages. In each one sat an enormous, tawny bird, with a vicious curved beak projecting from under a heavy leather hood.

  
The queen lowered her voice, apparently to avoid disturbing the eagles. “There aren’t many birds that can tangle with bigger owls. I’ve got gyrfalcons coming in from Iceland, and we have enough local handlers to manage those. But for great horned owls, or eagle-owls, even they are likely to have a tough time of it. But if there is a bird alive that can take down an eagle-owl, that someone has managed to train well enough to pull it off, it’s in that hold.”

  
Fraser watched one of the eagles stir, rocking from foot to foot. It clenched and unclenched its talons – long, dagger-sharp spikes of carotin. Fraser wondered if he was imagining the dry brown stains near their points.

  
“I think we’ve really got them this time, Mal,” the queen said, grimly. “This time, I think we’re really going to figure out what’s going on.”

* * *

  
_If the post office owned owls are supposed to a representative sample, and Britain’s closely monitored Augery population is used to control for other causes of owl death (storms, wind-farms, and unusually ambitious house-cats), the Prime Ministers’ Club seems to have been responsible for a five percent increase in owl loss in Britain between 1982 and 1996. Most of these losses were concentrated in high-volume shipping periods, when more owls were forced to fly by day – particularly the Christmas season and the opening of Hogwarts’ school term. The Prime Ministers’ Club must be regarded as in possession of any information contained in an assigned Hogwarts text for the last seventeen years, as well as, more speculatively, a rough prosopographical model of the British wizarding population built on Christmas card data, a sampling of magical periodicals, and a store of magical devices, some of which are functional in muggle hands. The Department of Experimental Charms has been ordered to develop eagle-proofing charms,(6) but this is very much a case of closing the barn door after the hippogriffs have torn little Jimmy’s throat out. _

  
_In 1996, the Rt. Hon. John Major (known Club member) was briefed on the re-emergence of T. Riddle by C. Fudge and R. Scrimgeour, and assigned K. Shacklebolt as a personal bodyguard. The 1997 election ousted the conservative government, and the Rt. Hon. Jim Hacker replaced Major – he was duly briefed by R. Scrimgeour, K. Shacklebolt, and a security team lead by R. Williamson. It is now believed that immediately subsequent to this briefing, he was contacted by the Prime Ministers’ Club – K. Shacklebolt has suggested a 15 June meeting with E. II. R., a 1 June meeting with the Rt. Hon. John Major, and a 6 June telephone call with the Most Hon. P. J. Patterson as possible moments of contact. The general MoM policy of censorship in the period, however, though fantastically ill-judged, nevertheless succeeded in concealing from this group the full seriousness of the developing Second Wizarding War, until August 1, 1997._

* * *

  
_1 August, 1997._  
  
Jim Hacker was in a crowded and thoroughly tedious meeting on fishing quotas when Kingsley Shacklebolt blew in the door. His cheek had been torn open, his hair scorched, and his smart grey business suit stained with ash, dirt, and blood. Most disturbingly of all, though his face was fixed, his eyes were red, and wet with tears. The ministers around Hacker were rising, and shouting, but there was a sound like a gunshot and a blinding silver light, and they fell limply back into their chairs.

  
“We’ve lost,” Shacklebolt said, walking directly towards Hacker.

  
Hacker starred first at the unconscious ministers around him, and then at the blood-streaked Shacklebolt. “What? Lost? How could you have lost?”

  
“The Ministry is down. Scrimgeour’s dead. Hell, I don’t know. I couldn’t get him out. I hope he’s dead. I should have killed him myself, I had a shot but I couldn’t… “ he staggered into one of the few empty chairs. Hacker was staring at him blankly. He had only seen the old leonine man once, but he has seemed somehow unkillable.

  
“I sent messages to everyone I could trust. That should have taken longer than it did. I caught myself trying to send a message to Mad-Eye, and he’s been dead almost a month now -- I had to keep myself from thinking about that, to make the magic work. Mad-Eye. Amelia Bones. Albus. Now Scrimgeour. He was a sonofabitch, but he did what he thought was right, and he did it good and hard. Now it’s just me.”

  
“What’s the plan?” Hacker said, trying to keep his voice even. He had seen people like this before. The trick was to keep them oriented towards a problem. But Shacklebolt just laughed, hollowly.

  
“Plan? There is no plan. They were unstoppable before. With the resources of the ministry behind them, I have no idea what they can do. They’ll be coming for me soon.”

  
“For you?” Hacker asked. Shacklebolt had been there to protect him, after all -- Hacker had not considered that he might be a target as well, and certainly not that he might be a target with a higher priority.

  
Shacklebolt’s face broke from its blank expression suddenly into a smile of such savage satisfaction and predatory fury that Hacker scootched his chair back involuntarily. “Oh yes. After today, they will certainly want to kill me. I expect they will come for you too, eventually. I thought I should warn you.”

  
“I see.” Hacker grimaced. “Do you have any notion what I should do when they come?”

  
Shacklebolt took a deep breath. “If they come, they will try to control your mind. Don’t let them. If you can, make them believe you’ll do what they want without them cursing you. If they do curse you, fight it like hell.”

  
Shacklebolt closed his eyes, and with obvious effort stood back up. He waved his wand, and the bodies in the chairs straightened; the two guards, still unconscious rose back to their feet, their crumpled uniforms straightening, and one un-holstered handgun sliding neatly back into its sheath; Hacker’s chair dragged itself back into its former position.  
“There is one other thing you can try,” Shacklebolt said. His face was blank again, and he spoke quickly. “Assuming I survive the next hour or so. I think, when they come, they will probably give you a chance to talk. They are arrogant. Proud. They will want to see you grovel. If they do, you can tell them I came to talk to you, and asked you to pass on a message. If they try to control your mind, I’ll know. I just killed Mulciber and the Averies, and rocked Voldemort back on his heels.  Unless Voldemort wants to babysit you personally, they can’t stop me killing you. Then there will be another election, another Prime Minister, and we start all over again, until the muggles work out what the game is. They don’t want that any more than we do. You can tell them that. Maybe they’ll listen, accept a draw. Probably they’ll laugh at you and tell you I’m already dead. I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything else.” And then Shacklebolt was simply gone.

  
For a moment the room was quiet, and then quite suddenly, the low susurrus resumed, as if nothing had happened. Off to Hacker’s right, two ministers resumed snickering at some private, whispered joke, while the speaker resumed mid-sentence: “…the position on the Icelandic herring fishery is that the current quotas are quite…”

  
Hacker coughed loudly, worked his jaw, and coughed again. The room fell silent, and turned to him. “I wonder actually,” he said, voice sounding oddly shrill in his ears, “if this might be a good time to adjourn for a while. We’ve all been given a lot to think about, and we can come back to the matter with our minds fresh. Yes. Yes, that would be best really.

  
With a few odd looks, the meeting broke up, people filing out of the door. As soon as the door had closed behind the last of them, Hacker pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket, and started dialing. He had trouble looking away from the back of Shacklebolt’s chair, where there was a small smear of blood.

* * *

_For the first few weeks, the Prime Ministers’ Club, starved for intelligence and rocked by the sudden crisis, reacted with something like blind panic. The Prime Minister’s office was abandoned, but rigged with cameras and claymore mines. Hacker’s family was moved to a safe-house, on the pretext of credible threats from the IRA, and Hacker himself went nowhere without being monitored by half a dozen snipers on nearby rooftops, and a wire. Trident launch procedures were secretly rendered inoperable, and contingency plans were drawn up for a kind of royal coup._

  
_Two weeks later, however, there appeared to have been no attack – suborning the government of the United Kingdom was evidently not a high priority of their opponents. Meanwhile, the falconry office, working overtime and relying on the apparent political chaos in the secret world to cover their activities, threw away discretion and succeeded in closing some of the gaps in their intelligence._

  
_There had been a coup in the magical world, and not a very secret one. Longstanding government policies were reversed, the tone of press coverage had changed overnight, and worrying ministry policies against non-magical groups were prominent. The scale of the threat was, then, unquestionable, but there was no evidence that it was immediate. There was time to plan a better-organized response._

* * *

  
“I think we can all agree,” the queen said, in the general meeting of the Club on encrypted satellite phones two weeks later, “that the time has come for us to adopt a less passive stance.” No one contradicted her. “The previous magical government can not be considered an ally, per se, but in light of the current government’s positions and known affiliations, it is in our interest to intervene on their behalf if we are given an opportunity to do so decisively.”

  
“A coordinated press briefing might do the trick,” Patterson responded. “All of us at once, so they can’t shut it down.”

  
 “No good,” Angela Merkel said. “All of us have survived so long only because we are not targets. We are not certain that we could protect just Hacker – we would have no hope of protecting all of us, if it was known we were all threats.”

  
“If we cannot defend, all the more reason to attack,” Patterson argued. “By the way, no offense to Hacker, but should he really be on this call? Don’t we have reason to believe he is compromised?”

  
“If he is,” one of the old men with Australian accents (Fraser? Hacker thought. Hawke?) “we’re fucked anyway, aren’t we? Beg pardon, ma’am.”

  
“Yes,” the queen said. “No point in cutting him out at this stage. And while I think we should prepare statements, that should be regarded as a last resort. Our nuclear option.”

  
“On that subject,” a voice answered, and Hacker, the queen, and half a dozen other voices answered in chorus with variations of “no, Maggie.”

  
“You know,” the piping voice of the queen mother came over the line, “I wonder if we might be aiming at the wrong press. A, ah, muggle attack that was prominent enough to be undeniable would be quite embarrassing. Word would get around. The government is new, and unstable enough they have to pretend nothing has changed. We just need to give them one good shove.”

  
“Where shall we shove?” the same Australian asked. “We could maybe pin down the location of that Dragon sanctuary in Wales.”

  
“When the IRA was trying to overthrow us, they didn’t attack the London zoo, for God’s sake,” the woman Maggie grumbled.

  
“Jim,” the queen said. “Shacklebolt said they would come for you eventually, and that they would be sloppy when they did it. How far would you trust his judgement?”

  
“Absolutely,” Hacker said instantly. “John?”

  
“Concur,” John Major said. “He was a pretty good secretary in a government structure he barely understood. Humphrey was livid. When it comes to something he actually knows about? We can trust him.”

  
“Good. That’s very good. This is what I suggest...”

* * *

  
The limousine came abruptly to a stop in front of 10 Downing Street. Two men jumped out and one came around the car to help out a slight, old woman, who walked with a cane. The other went to the trunk and pulled out a pair of golf bags and a bulky duffle. They walked toward the door, where the nervous, confused guard eyed them with confusion.

  
“Henry, isn’t it?” the queen mother asked him. “I’ve seen you here before haven’t I?”

  
“Yes ma’am,” he answered.

  
“Mr. Hacker is going to take me golfing with my guests here. Perfectly lovely. It was going to be next week but the weather is so lovely today, isn’t it?”

  
“Yes ma’am. Please go right in – the Prime minister phoned down to say he was expecting you.”

  
“Thank you dear. Come along gentlemen.”

  
“Does it ever bother you,” Pierre Trudeau asked, as soon as the door was safely closed behind them, “that no one in this city recognizes us?”

  
Jean Chrétien shrugged. “Our British cousins are perhaps a little self-absorbed. Convenient for us, though.”

  
“Now, now,” the queen mother said, tossing her cane carelessly into the umbrella stand. “Don’t be rude.” She unzipped one of the golf bags, and began pulling out weapons. “Let’s see. Lee Enfield for Pierre. C7 carbine for Jean. And my beauties!” she pulled out two long, ornate Purdey double-barrelled shotguns.

  
Jean was passing around odd quilted jackets, British army helmets, and hearing protection, while Pierre passed around bandoliers of ammunition, side-arms, and hand grenades. Hefting the one still unopened golf bag, Jean followed the other two up to the second floor.

  
Hacker was pacing nervously outside his office door, holding the machine pistol. “Is there really not anyone else?” he said, when the group reached the head of the stairs.

  
“It was supposed to be the Australian team on shift this week,” Jean said, “but they had to go to the service for the Westralia, and we were the backup.

  
“What on earth am I going to tell the press if this goes badly?” Hacker grumbled. “Ma’am, I really think you should sit this out.”

  
“Jim, I’m the only one you don’t need to worry about! Absolutely no one will be surprised if I am reported dead. I’ve been using that stupid cane to make it look even more plausible.”

  
“I’m canoeing in Manitoba, I believe. Drowning, bear attack, something like that.” Pierre said. “Her majesty, ah, the other her majesty, has the details. We can delay any report on my death for a couple of months, to prevent suspicious timing.”

  
“Assassination for me,” Chrétien said cheerfully. “I wanted Quebecois nationalists, but her majesty said that would be too inflammatory, so I think its some fictional formal federal employee with a grudge. Lax security at the London trade summit, Jim, really you should be ashamed of yourself. Tut, tut.”

  
“Oh for God’s sake!” Hacker shouted, but the queen mother put a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, dear, he’s just teasing. Untreated appendicitis, no one to blame but himself, etc., etc. Possibly was distracted by the furor around my death and failed to seek treatment on that account, depending on how this shakes out.”

  
“This is going to be Princess Diana all over again,” Hacker grumbled. “You know that, don’t you?”

  
Trudeau was helping Chrétien unload a Lewis light machine gun from the remaining golf bag. “We’ll set this up on your desk for you,” Trudeau said. “Just cover us if anyone tries to follow us out.” Chrétien handed Hacker another of the grey quilted jackets and a helmet.  Reluctantly, Hacker removed his coat and tie, and pulled on the helmet and jacket. He looked at the others -- old, heavily armed, and ridiculously dressed, professional camouflage helmets clashing wildly with the home-made jackets. He followed them back into the office, where they heaved his heavy desk on its side, making it into a makeshift machine gun nest. Hacker reloaded his machine pistol, and set it beside the two ammo pans in the knee hole of his desk. The queen mother looked at the pistol, distastefully. “That’s really an amateur’s weapon, you know,” she said, slinging one shotgun over her shoulder, and checking the the safety on the other.

  
“Blame Maggie. She left it in the drawer when she left, and apparently it’s been there ever since.” Hacker said.

  
“And, with respect, ma’am,” Chrétien said, checking the action on his C7, “you look like you have confused ‘evil wizards,’ and ‘partridges.’”

  
“I know how to use these. I don’t know how to use any of the things Lizzy has piled up in that silly armory. Anyway, Purdey is the best. Gunsmiths to the royal family.”

  
“Ma’am, that doesn’t make any sense as a credential when it’s you saying it,” Chrétien said, tiredly. It sounded like it was not the first time they had had this argument today. Hacker noticed that Chrétien had found a pair of knuckle-dusters somewhere, and had slipped them over the fingers of his left hand.

  
“Are we all set?” the queen mother said, pretending not to hear Chrétien. The canadians nodded. “Would you like to leave your purse?” Hacker said, pointing to the large burgundy handbag the queen mother had hitched on the shoulder without a shotgun.

  
“No dear. I don’t feel comfortable without it.”

  
“Besides,” Trudeau said. “She need somewhere to keep the plastique. Fire in the hole!” He tossed a flash grenade through the portal. The group looked away and shielded their ears, until the deafening thump had sounded, and one after another, all but Hacker, nestled behind the machine gun, slipped through the portal, weapons ready.

* * *

  
They came out into a narrow stone corridor, floor scorched by the grenade, but otherwise undamaged. They followed the passage until they came to a heavy wooden door, which opened easily under Chrétien’s hand, and the group emerged out into a massive stone hall, floored in dark wood, with a ceiling of weird shifting designs. Along one wall was a row of what looked like tall marble fireplaces. Along the other, beyond a huge gilt statue, was a long wooden counter. In the enormous room, there seemed to be only a single other person -- at one end of the counter, stood a small woman in a white blouse, blue blazer, striped tie, and jet-black lipstick. Her mouth was hanging open. The three muggles trained their weapons on her, and she quickly raised her hands above her head. “Don’t shoot!” she shouted. “Shit… are you… you can’t possibly be…”

  
“Would you tell us please,” the queen mother said, her sweet voice at odds with her unshifting gun barrel, “where we are?”

  
“Umm,” she said. “The Ministry of Magic?”

  
“Oh good,” the queen mother answered. “We had hoped so. Where is everyone else?”

  
“There was… well, there is some kind of battle going on. Almost everyone went to go fight on one side or the other, or ran off to be with their families. I wanted to go too, but I’m half muggle, and my sister’s a squib, and I just couldn’t risk leaving my job…” She was starting to cry -- she must have been holding it back for some time. “Ever since Scrimgeour disappeared, I’ve known things were wrong, but there was just nothing I could do…”

  
The queen was squinting at her tie, and the little silver pin holding it in place. “That tie’s regimental, isn’t it?” There was a hint of disapproval in her words, and the woman stuck out her chin, defiantly. “My Dad’s. Queen’s Gurkha Signals. Er, your Majesty. “

  
The queen mother lowered the shotgun. “Jean?” she said. Chrétien and Trudeau both shifted there aim away from the woman, and Chrétien stepped forward, fishing a piece of paper out of his pocket. “How many family members do you have who might be in danger if you disappeared?”

  
The woman shrugged. “Just me and my sister, now, I guess.”

  
“And your sister, is she nearby? In London?”

  
When the woman nodded, Chrétien passed her the paper. “Go find your sister, now, and go to the Canadian consulate, at this address here. Introduce yourself by saying that you represent a business interested in marketing Northumbrian watermelons in Manitoba. They will take you to a plane, and fly you to St. John’s. Our people will be in contact with you there, to debrief you. Say nothing to anyone but them. Do you agree?”

  
The woman nodded, eagerly. She jumped over the desk, and was heading toward the door, picking up speed when Trudeau snapped “wait!” His eyes had wandered from the woman, and fixed on an enormous, hideous gold statue in the middle of the room. “What,” he said, “is that?”

  
The woman turned around, and grimaced. “Oh,” she said. “That. They replaced the old Fountain of Magical Brotherhood, just a couple of months ago. I’m sorry. I really hate it. I try to pretend it isn’t there.”

  
“This statue,” the queen mother said. “Pretty famous, is it?”

  
“Well, yeah,” the woman said. “I guess.”

  
The two Canadians exchanged glances, and then looked at the queen mother, who nodded, and tossed her handbag to Trudeau, who caught it, and began packing clumps of plastique onto the gold statue, adding a detonator to each. Watching, the woman’s face turned from puzzlement to glee, and she pumped her fist. “Oh, yeah!” she said. “Fuck, yeah! Can I help?”

  
“Just go, please,” said Chrétien. “This room will not be a healthy place to be in a few minutes.” Reluctantly, and looking over her shoulder with a grin at the explosives, the woman began to walk towards the fireplaces.

  
It was at that moment when the far end of the room filled with a series of sounds like gunshots, and a group of six figures in long black robes appeared. One robe was on fire, and its wearer tore it off and threw it to the floor, where it smouldered. Two others, both men, hand pulled back their heavy cowls. They were sweating, and breathing heavily, as if they had been running. The woman, whose clothing had been on fire, saw one of them and swore. “Pruitt, I told you to stay behind! That was a tracking curse he hit you with, dammit!”

  
“So I should wait for him to hit me with something else?” the man snapped back. “We just need to get to the Department of Mysteries, where its shielded, and hunker down. There’s no way he’s really dead, it’ll be just like last time. Come on!” He turned and started to run, the others following. One man, finding the receptionist in front of him, snarled, and waved his wand, and she was ripped sideways across the room, landing against the wall between two fireplaces.

  
The muggles, who had been hesitating, trying to guess if these newcomers were friends or enemies, chose this moment to abandon trigger discipline. A burst from Chrétien’s C7 caught the man who had attacked the receptionist in the shoulder, spinning him like a top, and leaving him motionless and bleeding on the dark floor. The queen mother’s shotgun answered the carbine’s crackle with a roar, and another of the black-cowled figures fell. The queen mother tossed the gun aside and was unslinging the second, when the witch who had thrown off her cloak directed a wand at her. There was a burst of green light, and a soft, whooshing sound.

  
Trudeau leapt, trying to put himself between the wand and the queen mother, but was too slow. The light struck the queen mother squarely in the chest, and Trudeau sprawled uselessly on the ground.

  
The queen mother blinked. She looked down at her chest. Then she leveled her second shotgun, and emptied both barrels into the witch.

  
“Oh not another one,” one of the surviving Deatheaters screamed, and with the other two still standing turned and sprinted toward the door on the opposite end of the hall.  
The slowest of the three stumbled, just as a section of the long wooden counter began to ripple like water caught in a heavy wind. The wood swirled up into the lithe form of a cougar, which leapt and caught the man by the throat, shaking him like a terrier with a rat. The receptionist was sitting up, against the wall her left hand pressed to the back of her head, but her right hand holding a wand pointed at the cougar. She made very slight up and down motions, like a conductor rapping a music stand; the cougar drove the limp man over and over again into the floor.

  
There were two more pops (barely audible over Chrétien’s continued but inaccurate fire) and two more people appeared -- a tall man in a torn purple robe, and a woman with bubble-gum pink hair, slightly singed. They were visible for only a moment, before the whole far end of the hall was engulfed in a fountain of red and silver light.

  
The queen mother dragged Trudeau to cover behind the statue. His coat had torn in his fall, and it was giving him a faintly bready smell. There was a thin trail of yeast and silkworm cocoons on the floor behind him. “I owe Angela an apology, I guess,” the queen mother said. “I really thought the jacket plan was just silly.”

  
Chrétien was trying to pull the receptionist into the cover of one of the fireplaces, but this was proving difficult. She had her cougar prowling at the edge of the new battle, looking for a target. “That was really satisfying,” she said to Chrétien, as he tugged at her left arm again, to no effect. “I’ve been imagining using that on my ex, but honestly, I think that was even better.”

  
When the light cleared, the two figures in black robes were on the ground, and the new man and woman were still standing. The muggles stood, cautiously. There was a sound of metal on metal as Trudaeu worked the Lee Enfield’s bolt, and a softer sound as the queen mother dropped a fresh set of buckshot cartridges into her shotgun.

  
The woman with the pink hair was staring at the muggles. “Umm, boss?” she said.

  
“Kingsley!” the queen mother shouted. “Glad to see you are still alive, after all. Jim said you were having a bit of trouble on this end. Thought we’d try to lend a hand. The receptionist said there was some kind of battle? I take it you won?”

  
Now that the pair of wizards were standing still, and not wreathed in magical light, it was clear they were both exhausted and bedraggled. There were deep circles under the woman’s eyes, and Kingsley was staring blankly at the queen mother, as if unable to process her presence.

  
“Boss?” the woman said a bit more urgently. “Are-ay eythey ugglesmay? Ere-hey? Atwhey ethey uckf…”

  
Kingsley held up a hand. He took a deep breath. “Who the hell are all of you?” he asked, flatly.

  
“Ah!” the receptionist said, with forced cheeriness, hurrying forward. “Mr. Shacklebolt, Her Highness, the Dowager Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Your Highness, Mr. Shacklebolt. And these are,” she waved vaguely at the two Canadians and the pink-haired woman, “umm, other people.”

  
“Thank you, Solana,” Shacklebolt said, with a kind of fixed gallows calm. “Very helpful, as always. Your Highness, how…” He trailed off, evidently unsure how to adequately complete that question.

  
The queen mother gestured to Trudeau. “Pierre, do carry on. And perhaps you would help him, Jean?” She smiled at the wizards, taking Solana by the shoulder and gesturing with the shotgun for the others to come with her. “We should get into another room. We are going to blow up this statue, you see. Perhaps you could show us to a room where we could talk, ah, Solana, was it?”

  
Shacklebolt and the pink-haired woman followed her in mute amazement. Solana brought them through a maze of corridors to a wood-paneled break room, with a card table, an old-fashioned ice box, and a shelf of odd crockery. “First,” the queen mother said, “I should mention that if any of us go missing, or turn up with no memory of what happened, our associates will publicize the existence of the magical world with irrevocable thoroughness. Second, we wish to negotiate with someone in authority. We quite understand your desire for secrecy, and we hope we can come to some mutually beneficial arrangement. Nevertheless, I’m afraid status quo ante is simply not acceptable.”

Shacklebolt cleared his throat. “Someone in authority. Honestly, I have no idea who that would be. The ministry has been a puppet government of a cabal of dark wizards since I last talked to your Prime Minister. Officially, the Minister of Magic is Pious Thickness, but he’s…”

  
“Dead, actually,” the queen mother said. “He attacked Jim.”

  
The pink-haired woman gaped at her. Shacklebolt seemed to have passed beyond surprise. “Dead. I see,” he said. “The Wizengamot will need to have new elections, I suppose, although for all we know half of them may be mind-controlled still. So, frankly, if you are looking for someone in authority, you may have quite a while to wait.”

  
The queen mother nodded. She patted her chest, slipped her hand into her quilted jacket, and extracted a pack of cigarettes from somewhere. She offered them around; Solana and the pink-haired woman declined, but Shacklebolt seized a cigarette eagerly. The queen mother had stuck her own cigarette in the corner of her mouth and was searching for a pack of matches when she discovered both her and Shacklebolt’s cigarettes were already lit; she nodded Shacklebolt her thanks.

  
“A little bit of a wait is acceptable. I suppose you will need help tracking down surviving members of the cabal. If you get Jim pictures or descriptions, he can get on to the Home Office, and get people searching CCTV and so on. We’ll give you six months to get your house in order. And then we will want a meeting. Understood?”

  
Shacklebolt shrugged. “What the hell? By then, they should have found some politician to run the ministry, and it won’t be my problem anymore. I’ll pass the word along. And we could use people on your side to help mop up the stragglers. I’ll try to get you descriptions. Give me a couple of days. I don’t even know who is still alive on our side, let alone theirs.” He looked very tired. “Solana, do you have somewhere safe you can hole up, until we get things sorted out?”

  
Solana looked at the queen mother. “That business about the embassy still ok?” she said.

  
The queen mother shrugged, then nodded. “Cool!” Solana said.

  
Shacklebolt opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He shook his head. “Actually, I don’t want to know. I am not an official MoM employee at the moment, so it isn’t my problem. Tonks, could you see she gets wherever she is going safely?”

  
Tonks nodded, and the two left the room. Tonks was introducing herself as they walked out. “Hi, Solana. I’m Tonks. Cool cat thing.” The door closed behind them.

  
Shacklebolt had somehow already smoked his cigarette down to a dog-end. The queen mother passed him another, and looked at him sympathetically. “Jim told me about Alastor,” she said.

  
Shacklebolt looked up at her, the cigarette flaring. “I don’t have the energy to work through all the questions I have right now,” he said, “but how on earth do you even know who Alastor was?”

  
“I knew him. The War -- the War of Grindelwald, I think you call it. They put him on me and George for the duration. He was a sweet kid. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for George, I’d have had a bit of a crush on him. Did you manage to get whoever killed him?”

  
“Not personally,” Shacklebolt said. “But yes. He’s dead.”

  
The queen mother nodded. “Good. Alastor was a good’un. Quite a few trucks short of a convoy, but a good’un. He keep using that flask of his?”

  
Shacklebolt smiled. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a battered silver flask, and set it on the table. “Yeah. Constantly. And gave me this one when I joined the Aurors. Was always quizzing me, to make sure I had it on me. Paranoid old fool.” He wiped his eyes, stood up, and took a couple of the cleaner mugs from the little shelf. He poured out a measure of liquid into each, and pushed one over to the queen mother. “Alastor,” he said, raising his mug.

  
“Alastor,” the queen mother answered. The two drank. Off in the distance, they heard the roar of the the plastic explosives, and felt the rumble as the fragments of the statue came crumbling down.

* * *

  
_To date, the Obviator branch has not been able to propose any plan adequate to answer the Prime Ministers’ Club’s “nuclear option,” which would not itself be so attention-grabbing as to be self-defeating. Our knowledge of club membership remains incomplete, and we lack the resources for a coordinated attack on all possible members. The continued absence of Solana Rai, along with several other wizards of muggle parentage, gives further cause for concern. In the aftermath of the recent war, some WoMPs may have reached the conclusion that magical governments are, at best, potential enemies -- an opinion which, while unfortunate, is hardly surprising._

  
_In the short term, our best course, in the opinion of this author, consists of the following:_

  1. _Cease all ISWS-45 disclosures to new muggle heads of state or government._
  2. _Censor all public knowledge of the security breach (should be easy, since no one believes anything the Prophet prints anyway) to prevent public panic._
  3. _Engage in negotiation (ie bribery) with the Club, exchanging magical assistance for the limitation of any further distribution of knowledge of the wizarding world._
  4. _Attempt to infiltrate the group with WoMPs loyal to the MoM and agents trained in muggle studies and disguised with Polyjuice potions to resemble muggle heads of state or government._



_This probably won’t work. But what the heck. It’s not like things were going peachy while we were keeping things secret, anyway._

* * *

 

Endnotes:  
  
(1) Actually her legal name.  
  
(2) While now, in the midst of this national crisis, is not perhaps the ideal time to raise this question, it is a matter of persistent curiosity to me that all of my intelligence reports are forwarded to what is, purportedly, a branch of muggle Military Intelligence responsible for making maps of the former Soviet bloc. Is there a covert branch of the MoM masquerading as a team of secret agent geographers? Who exactly do they think they are fooling? Or is this some kind of long-standing, weird, practical joke on some presumably very confused muggle spies?  
  
(3) Per standing order of Minister Bagnold, renewed with flattering promptness by every subsequent Minister, all memos by analyst Henry Clark (your truly) are automatically classed as unsuitable for foreign distribution. The author wishes to note that the report which lead to this standing order – “Intelligence Implications of Likely Blackmail Vulnerabilities of Director Crouch” – though _perhaps_ unsuitable for distribution to the Bulgarian ministry, turned out nevertheless to be very accurate. Note also that the recent decision of most of my department, including those drawing full-time salary and benefits, to defect to the puppet government of a Dark Lord should, perhaps, put my single misdirected memo into perspective.  
  
(4) Owing to the creation in 1695 of the Aperating Order of St. Catchpole, confession by Catholic wizards to non-wizard priests has rarely been necessary. To this day, shouting the phrase “I have a confession to make,” at 100 decibels or more will cause a disheveled member of the order to appear before you, ready to perform any necessary sacrament. The characteristic frilly pink cowls of the order allow them to levitate slightly off the ground and make them invulnerable to physical harm – shouting the phrase on the edge of busy streets or the rim of Niagara falls is therefore pointless, as well as punishable by excommunication. Scholarly work on the order is sadly lacking, but the interested can find more information in this author’s own radio mystery drama, _Pro- and Con-fession_. The production was sadly cancelled after one season, though I maintain that the one-line _Daily Prophet_ review cited by the MBC in this decision, “Like G. Chesterton on acid,” should really have been regarded as high praise. If the Director General of the MBC winds up on the distribution list at some stage (which given current security protocols seems likely), I hope she will bear this in mind.  
  
(5) Essentially a narrow tube filled with supersonic owls. If you have the security clearance to read this report, and needed this footnote, you really need to take a muggle studies course.   
  
(6) You should have seen the looks on their faces. 


End file.
